Nickelodeon Gets Animated With Pair of New Series
‘Fanboy and Chum Chum,’ ‘Team Umizoomi’ Added To Lineup
By Larry Barrett -- Multichannel News, 9/17/2008 7:23:00 AM
Nickelodeon Wednesday announced it has ordered up a pair of new animated series to round out its programming lineup with the addition of Fanboy and Chum Chum and Team Umizoomi.
The network has ordered 26 episodes of Fanboy and Chum Chum, a new CG animated series spinning off from the upcoming Nicktoons Network anthology series Random! Cartoons. Combining classic squash and stretch animation with digital CG technology, the series centers on a fearless, comic book-loving 10-year-old named Fanboy and his best friend and trusty sidekick, Chum Chum.
David Hornsby (The Mullets, Jake in Progress) voices Fanboy with Nika Futterman (My Gym Partner’s a Monkey) as Chum Chum, joined by a star-studded cast including Jamie Kennedy (Ghost Whisperer, The Jamie Kennedy Project), Josh Duhamel (Transformers, Las Vegas) and Estelle Harris (Seinfeld) as Fanboy’s untrusting wizard friend Kyle, Fanboy’s uber-geek mentor Oz and Oz’ mother, respectively.
The series was created by Eric Robles (Ni Hao, Kai-lan, The X’s, Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy) and executive produced by Robles, Steve Tompkins (The Bernie Mac Show, Entourage, The Simpsons) and Fred Seibert (Frederator’s Random! Cartoons).
Nick Jr. has started production on a 20-episode order of Team Umizoomi, which combines 2D and 3D animation with live action to create “a uniquely patterned urban environment where miniature action heroes help real preschoolers solve everyday problems by using math.
The series is created by a team of Blue’s Clues veterans: Jennifer Twomey (Co-Creator/Executive Producer), Soo Kim (Co-Creator/Producer/Design Director/Writer) and Michael T. Smith (Co-Creator/Producer/Writer). Team Umizoomi (formerly called The Umizumiz) is set to premiere on Nick Jr. in 2009.
Each episode explores math in a variety of real life contexts, while set to a catchy soundtrack of preschool pop rock that helps the team along the way. In Umi City math is everywhere. By making math the key to solving preschool relatable problems, the show will develop and enhance kids’ interest in, excitement for and enjoyment of math.
Also, Nickelodeon announced it has picked up a second, 20-episode season of another animated comedy, The Mighty B!.
Created by comedian Amy Poehler (SNL) and executive producers and network animation veterans Cynthia True and Erik Wiese, The Mighty B! airs each Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET on Nickelodeon.
Since its debut, The Mighty B! has attracted on average 3.1 million total viewers, including 1.8 million kids 2-11, 1.2 million kids 6-11 and 764,000 tweens 9-14 on Saturday mornings
